2023-05-01: Dis/Like
- Log: 2023-05-01: Dis/Like
- Cast: Ujico Issa
- Where: December 02
- Date: U.C. 0097 05 01
- Summary: Ujico has likes and dislikes.
There are a lot of things that Ujico Issa likes. White peaks of foam on top of a sink full of fresh, hot, soapy water before a single dish has been put into it. Dipping her hand into a sack of dry rice or grain or beans. The way smoke looks when it curls lazily upward from a cigarette or her coworkers' mouths as they sit together behind the restaurant, fake sunlight casting golden rays across the alleyway.
There are things she dislikes too, of course. The way the smell of bleach clings to her hands the rest of the day after she's through with her shift. The way her sneakers skid on the floor sometimes, despite their 'slip proof' rating. Getting garbage juice on her pants or shoes when it's her turn to do the garbage run.
She likes the bright red of her scooter, an inexpensive knock-off of a more famous (and more reliable) company's design. She likes the way her horns slot neatly into the holes she drilled in her helmet. She likes to imagine she's really cool, a badass biker chick taking off into the sunset even if she's really just a dishwasher putt-putting home.
She doesn't like going to bed without taking a shower first. She likes sitting on the loveseat in her pajamas, singing along quietly (her neighbor complained once, and she's been careful since) with old music videos. She doesn't like having to be quiet, but she likes having a good relationship with other people.
Ujico doesn't like it when people don't like her. She likes to be likeable.
She's getting much better at it. Watching people, remembering phrases that made someone else smile, trying to crack the code one interaction at a time. Making herself look approachable, despite the horns and tattoos that should make her anything but. They are hers and she had wanted them and she loves them; she likes how she looks in the mirror now. Ujico smiles a little when she sees her reflection now, even if the work doesn't feel done. She's still too human, uncomfortably close to the schoolgirl who had walked home crying three days out of five and sullen the other two.
She would like this world much better if people were kinder. She thinks that inequality makes people mean. Deviations, have-nots, social pecking order, all the little cruelties that are just training for the bigger ones. She lies back on the loveseat with her legs hanging over one end and her head on a throw pillow, her Haro resting on her stomach, and thinks about the humans that cannot be gentle.
She doesn't like that. Ujico closes her eyes and imagines the world that VEDA said she could help create. One where people aren't hungry, where wars don't rip through entire countries, where everyone has enough and nobody feels the need or the right to take from someone else.
When will it get here? In her lifetime? How many times will she need to make threats, and then follow through? Will she end up killing many more people?
It's okay, she reminds herself. They were building things that would have hurt and killed many more people than Ujico could, would ever. She's minimizing the damage.
"Heartrate increased," Apple chirps from her place on Ujico's stomach. "Heartrate increased." Ujico takes stock. Heartrate, respiration, cortisol all up. Eyes widened.
Ujico shakes her head. "I'm okay," she reassures her(self). Her fingers press into Apple's metal shell until her fingertips and nails are pale from lack of blood. Apple doesn't complain. "'Everybody want to save the world, but nobody wants to help with the dishes.'" She's pretty sure that isn't a Buddhist saying, but a Buddhist speaker had said it to her class once.
It's okay if things get hard, or if she has misgivings. She just needs to keep going. She just needs to improve things where she can. "'You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.'" The quotations comfort her. She repeats a few more as she remembers them, until her breathing is slow and even and her skin doesn't feel like it's the wrong size anymore.
Ujico gets up off the loveseat and makes a tuna fish sandwich, eating it over the sink in the kitchen before counting out her meds and brushing her teeth.
She has another mission tomorrow. She likes to get a good night's sleep beforehand.